


Pink Champagne

by KiwiWitch



Category: InuYasha - A Feudal Fairy Tale
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Child Abuse, F/M, Kagura Week 2020, One Shot Collection, Oneshot Prompts Challenge, Seven Deadly Sins, Sexual Content, Vignette
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-25
Updated: 2020-11-11
Packaged: 2021-03-08 23:40:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 7,423
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27194557
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KiwiWitch/pseuds/KiwiWitch
Summary: Prompts for Kagura Week 2020
Relationships: Kagura/Sesshoumaru (InuYasha)
Comments: 38
Kudos: 53





	1. Gluttony

She isn’t really sure where it starts.

Of course, she wants a heart and she wants freedom. Those are nonnegotiable, immediate needs that must be fulfilled. She hungers for them, desperately, knowing that without one she cannot have the other, that both will come at a cost and even if that is her own life she will willingly pay the price.

Yet, somehow, miraculously, she escapes such a fee, and when Kagura does finally find her freedom the elation is short lived.

She has what she’s always wanted, soaring through the skies with her heart thundering in her chest and the winds kissing her cheeks. And yet…

It is not enough.

There are only so many days she can dance beneath the moonlight before the stars lose their luster, before the sun becomes oppressive and the rain an irritation that soaks through her robes rather than something a glorious marvel.

It feels like months, wandering the lands without direction, without  _ purpose,  _ until― 

She spots the bandits from far off, dirty, unwashed, human men bumbling along without a care in the world, nearly falling off their horses, drunk off whatever it is they’ve stolen from their last target. Kagura has seen their like before, too many times, but she cannot tear her eyes away from the bags slung across their horse’s backs, and it isn’t long before her feather dips, inching towards the ground where they’ve set up their camp.

They’re loud, and she can smell them before she’s even set foot within the light of their campfire, but drunk as they are they’ve neglected to admire their own spoils. Kagura has no problem slipping in, silent in the still air, and taking a peak…

Not much, but there are enough trinkets stuffed into their sacks to weigh it down; pilfered temple offerings and tiny golden statues, robes, bits of jewelry and the ornamentation from a family’s sword. It isn’t much, but the twinkle in the dim light catches Kagura’s eye, and as the men drink and laugh and make fools of themselves, she digs her hands deeper, ruffling through the cloth until she’s emptied its contents into the dirt.

Its fanatic, the way she paws through the goods without a care, pulling reams of fabric from the depths of sacks and tossing them over her head, hardly looking them over until the trinkets cover the ground around her feet. Even with the noise the men haven’t noticed, and it isn’t until her fingers close around the neck of a bottle that she slows to take a breath. 

She hardly savors the flavor when it hits her tongue and burns down her throat, only feels the weight in her belly as it fills with liquid, sloshing when she turns and realizes that she has an audience.

The men are staring at her, knowing what she is, but Kagura simply raises her bottle to them in a toast, a vibrant silk robe slung around her shoulders as she grins, teeth glimmering in the firelight.

* * *

She’s never shied away from violence, but she begins to understand why Naraku created himself an army rather than throw himself into the fray. It’s an exchange, she offers the men protection from whatever law or lord might seek to stop them, and they offer her…

It would be foolish to call it tribute, but the ever growing horde of trinkets of gold and fabrics and armor and drink and sweets certainly look it. Especially when they bring her cushions and the wood to make herself a throne, to oversee her wealth and place tables of offerings at her feet, the sweetest fruit and the most savory spices―her influence drives them to greater and greater lengths to please her, because the more she has the more it is not enough, every fabulous robe is simply another drape for her throne, and every golden statue is simply one more thing that most be polished, but she never reaches her fill, as she reclines into her cushions and swathes herself in silk and jewels and lets the wind fill in the cracks.

She doesn’t know how long it goes on, drinking her fill and stuffing herself with offerings from the cooks they’ve kidnapped for her, surrounded by her horde and the men she’s roped into worshipping her, the battles with furious lords dwindling with each new moon as they realize they cannot defeat her and that her empire of gold will only continue to grow. Until― 

She hears the screams, the shouting and the twang of bow strings loosed, the sound of a hell cat crashing through the roof of the pagoda she had the men build for her months ago, staring out to the sea and laden with the finest curtains that catch in the breeze oh so nicely. 

Kagura doesn’t move from where she’s laid back, comfortable in the cushions with a cup of sake in her hand and oranges laid out on a table before her―in fact, she hardly looks up, she just takes another long sip from her cup as the boy rushes inside, scythe at the ready and the hellcat at his heels. She almost feels a smile tugging at her cheeks when she hears his feet falter. It is only then that she looks up and meets Kohaku’s dumbfounded gaze.

“Good morning,” she says with a smile. Its been months, and the boy stares at her as if he’s seen a ghost. He swallows, clenches his fist around his weapon, and even the cat looks as if she doesn’t know what to do. 

“I’d heard there were a group of bandits being controlled by a youkai, but…” he raises a brow, “I didn’t think I’d find  _ you _ .”

Kagura grins and takes another sip of her drink. “And have you come to finish me off,  _ demon slayer _ ?”

Kohaku stares at her, and then shakes his head. Kagura’s smile turns devilish, and the boy spends a few more minutes watching her carefully. Shifting his weight, he opens his mouth― 

“I’ve told them not to kill anyone if they don’t have to, if it makes you feel any better.”

He purses his lips. “It doesn’t.”

Kagura shrugs and reclines back into her pillows, watches him watching her, until the boy finally has enough, his nerves give out and he leaves without another word. Kagura just smiles and continues admiring the jewels wrapped around her wrist as she takes another gulp and thinks that this might just be the finest bottle they’ve brought her yet.

She reaches for an orange, tears into it with polished nails and lets the juice gush into her palm and down her arm, but even as she slips a wedge onto her tongue, she knows it still isn’t enough.


	2. Envy

There is a hollow space between her ribs, and yet she still feels an ache where her heart should be.

It’s an odd thing, Kagura doesn’t like to think of herself as the emotional type, she has no time for such a ghostly thing as heartache, that hollow echo in her chest is nothing more than that. It doesn’t exist, and therefore she sees no point in dwelling on the things that would send a human screaming to their knees.

Kagura swings her fan and brings on a bloodbath with glee, and yet…

When she looks at those around her, that ache burns through her breast stronger than Naraku’s fist ever could.

As soulless as his eyes often are, Kagura has watched Kohaku thoroughly enough to see the glimpses, the brief lapses when he comes back to himself, the boy’s heart on full display even with blood on his face.

She sees it in those brief moments when his sister comes barrelling through the skies, screaming his name with tears in her eyes, as she fights and scrambles and claws to get her brother back.

In the face of the monk when he throws the unconscious girl over his shoulder and stumbles up the stairs of Mt. Hakurei, knowing that if he opens the hole in his palm he will surely kill himself, but that if he does not the youkai salivating over his flesh most definitely will.

She knows it in the voice of the young miko, when, despite the infant sucking at her soul, she screams out her love for the hanyou― 

Who comes crashing through the window, screaming her name even louder.

In the steps of a small human girl, following after a cold daiyoukai, and in the way he looks down at the top of her head, even when he thinks no one is looking…

She thinks it is loathing―that heat that fills her chest and the tips of her fingers―she feels when she catches those quick glances of those soft little looks. Because what else could it be? She loathes their weakness, the way they wear everything on their sleeves. It’s disgraceful, embarrassing, repulsive, and she hates them for it, mocks them for it, because she would never let herself act so foolish.

The space between her ribs aches, and it isn’t until Hakudoushi asks her why the slayer would throw herself on top of Kohaku, protecting him from the horde of rats, and that heat swirls through her belly, that she recognizes it for what it is.

It’s jealousy.

Kagura has no heart, and for a youkai such a thing is nothing to feel shame for, but that ache tugs at her chest every time she sees them.

Kagura has no heart, and the one who holds it would sooner feed her to the dogs than allow her a crumb of affection.

But, she has no time to dwell on the absence of a warmth she’s never known, not when her very life hangs on the whims of a monster. So she turns her eyes forward, and ignores the burn.


	3. Lust

That pulsing red thing, brutally held in Naraku’s palm, is nothing more to her than a lure on a string, a premonition of what could be instead of what is. The only thing she knows of the heart she does not have is pain, only aware of it when it is squeezed, crushed in the hands of a monster.

It does not flutter, does not softly ache in her breast, she cannot feel its pulse, there is no thunder of a heartbeat when she gets flustered, hot and bothered, when her thoughts wander…

Her heart, just like her freedom, are intangible, silent, tasteless on her tongue save for the promise they hold. She has no basis to imagine, no reference point for anything besides pain―what they must feel like, she doesn’t know. 

In the meantime, she can try to guess.

The night begins like a hundred others. A clouded sky that blots out the stars, a full moon only seen in glimpses beyond the thick sheet of fog, and Kagura, unattended and hopefully unsupervised, with only the slim details of one of the baby’s schemes as a bargaining tool…

It’s a stupid thing, and she only goes because she has little else to lose, her pride already battered and bruised. It hardly matters if she injures it a little more. Her feather drifts, heavy on the stagnant winds of a calm night, and finds him marching through an abandoned human village, strangely alone.

Inhabitants long gone, the place is desolate, even the rats have moved on, and she briefly wonders if he’s scavenging, but thinks better of it. Such a thing would be below him.

He notices her before she lands, stops when her feet touch the ground and only offers her a glance as a greeting. Curious, but not ready to ask what she wants. She’s become used to this by now.

“Yo, what you up to?”

He turns his head, his eyes a somber sort of grey in the darkness, but he doesn’t return her pleasantries. Instead he just raises his brow, asking what she wants, what she’s come for. She sees no point in playing coy, so with a sigh, she tells him.

She moves as she talks, flicking her fan and spinning it in her palm. She doesn’t look at him, knowing she would just find apathy if she were to chance a glance… With a final flick she returns her fan to hanging limply from her wrist and stops speaking, crosses her arms and throws her shoulder against the wall of the nearest abandoned hut. She’s moved in a little closer, but she knows better than to step within arms reach of him, they may be something like allies―and even that is a fragile assertion to make―but without the girl there to temper his actions, she isn’t sure where she stands. 

She looks up at him, and is surprised to find him staring―unnerving, it’s harder to read him without the light to reflect in his eyes.

“Is that it?”

She shrugs. “You know they don’t trust me with more than that.”

“Stop trying,” he says, his voice low, “it’s foolish.”

Stop trying to keep up the hope that he might change his mind? Or stop trying to sabotage Naraku’s machinations? It doesn’t matter, they’ve had this conversation before, and she can’t pretend as if the reprimand doesn’t smart, but she doesn’t plan to snap at him for repetition either.

Instead, she snorts. “Why? Still too cowardly to put my advice to use?”

She says it as a joke, lighthearted, the barest breath carrying her words, a soft chuckle to accompany them. But there is still the chance―that this will be the time she oversteps her bounds, that alone, she’ll insult him to the point of fury. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad. She has a bloody fate before her, at least this one she might look forward to, if only to steal the inevitable from Naraku’s hands.

But nothing happens, at first, he just stares at her, as if he’s thinking.

“You’ll die,” he says, and before the insult can catch up with her, he continues: “Does your life mean so little to you?”

“It ain’t like it means much to anyone right now,” she hisses, and pushes herself away from the wall. “What the hell does it matter what I do?”

A mistake, because when she steps forward she puts herself within his reach. It would hardly matter, she’s seen how quickly he can move, but his proximity is a threat all its own.

“...A waste.”

She doesn’t understand his meaning, but her first thought is that he’s referring to her or her attempts, which sets a scorching heat trickling down her spine. Rage curls her lip, she snarls.

Sesshoumaru just steps forward, crowding her against the wall, and he’s too close― 

“You misunderstand me.”

Her fingers pinch her fan, ready to swing, but when he raises his hand it is not to rip his claws through her throat, instead his hand goes to her jaw, tilting her head so that she has to look up at him, and despite the degrading position she finds the fury dripping away, his hand is warm and his eyes flicker down to her lips and― _ Oh. _

It happens very quickly then, everything such a blur that she hardly hears the thunder of the building when she pushes him away and his back collides with the one opposite, crashing through the wall. He’s on his back in the next second as she reaches for the ties around his waist, pulling them away quicker than he could with only one hand. The swords fall to the side and she tosses his armor away, loosening her own robes as she crawls onto his lap and sinks onto him.

There’s a sharp pinch, a burn between her legs, but despite the pain riding him is the most alive she’s ever felt. Heat builds, scorching hot and burning wherever his hand falls, her hip, her thigh, a breast, her spine... there is only the sound of their breathing, heavy panting that fogs in the cool air―Kagura sets her own rhythm, frantic, she rolls her hips against him with his hand gripping her thigh. He stares up at her, all golden eyed with his pupils blown out wide―the most flustered she’s ever seen him―as she takes her pleasure, her palm flat on his chest and nails digging into his skin…

She comes quickly, unravels around him with a choked sob, but when she falters his hand moves to her hip, moving her to a different pace, a different type of motion until he follows soon after, and it takes nearly all her strength not to succumb and collapse against his chest.

But Sesshoumaru stays inside her, catching his breath, and she can feel him, still pulsing, a dull throb, a trembling heartbeat, and she thinks― 

_ This must be what freedom feels like. _


	4. Avarice

“Oh, I like  _ these.” _

Kagura feels silly saying it, but the situation itself is ridiculous to begin with, so what’s a step further? As it is, the man behind the table is scared shitless. She doubts that his fear of her would be muted by how simple minded she sounds, the man  _ behind _ her, though…

Probably a bigger contributor to the traveling vendor’s dumbstruck expression. The village has gained a certain reputation for all things mystical, and even the merchants that wander through have begun to wise up, but there are still the few who haven’t that come through selling their wares. Kagura on her own can pass as human, but Sesshoumaru is much too ostentatious to go unnoticed.

Regardless, the vendor just nods limply when she holds up the sapphires to the light. She grins, and pulls the jade beads from her lobe, replacing them so that she can admire the tear drop shaped gems in her ears. She’s always worn green, to contrast with her eyes, but the blue reflecting in the sunlight does look quite nice…

“What do you think?”

She glances back at Sesshoumaru, joking, and as always, his face is neutral, but his gaze flicks to her ears and he gives an almost imperceptible nod. 

Her grin widens, and as much as she’s loathe to do it, she asks: “How much?”

The man tells her and Kagura reaches into her sleeve to retrieve her coin purse―it hardly matters that the money is stolen to begin with―but before she can count out the payment she hears the loud clink of metal on wood, and when she looks up she catches sight of Sesshoumaru’s claws pulling away leaving two golden coins in their wake.

“It’s taken care of.”

And he’s walking away before she can say anything, leaving her and the dumbstruck merchant with the same expression.

* * *

She tries it again, a little while later, during a summer festival where merchants have come from the countryside to sell their wares. They’re more accustomed to the way of the village and its oddities, so she gets less stares this time, but she does have to wait to time it just right― 

“Oh, this is absolutely, beautiful,” she coos, holding up a midnight blue obi, splattered with white dots, patterned to look like stars. “How much?”

The woman tells her, and once again, before Kagura can lift a finger there is already money being deposited in the smiling woman’s hand. Without a word, Sesshoumaru is already walking away, leaving Kagura to stare at his retreating back, thoughts racing through her head.

* * *

She doesn’t bother with “thank you”s, because if that’s what he’s looking for then he wouldn’t run away so quickly, and she doesn’t offer to return the favor, because he’s never asked anything of her and she doubts that a few gifts will change that now. It doesn’t matter what his reasoning is, Kagura is not a humble person by nature―Sesshoumaru of all people should know this―in fact, even she would call herself quite selfish.

Which is why she keeps doing it.

Soon enough it’s not just the odd traveling merchant, or a street vendor. She finds that his generosity―if she can call it that―does not stop with silently buying her trinkets. The presents are just the start, because once she sees the crack Kagura is more than happy to exploit it.

She says she needs a new tie for her hair. One appears.

She says she would like an inner robe made of silk. A courier delivers it the next day.

She says she wants a golden bangle, studded with rubies. It’s several days, but before long a jeweler comes, bearing several golden circlets in an ebony box.

It’s flattering, but Kagura is selfish, and she pushes their games to new limits.

She  _ tells _ him she wants a kosode made of violet silk and silver threads. He has a seamstress taking her measurements the next day.

She tells him she’d like a castle near the sea. A warlord falls to his death from the cliffs, and the humans are reluctant to stay in such a cursed place, leaving the palace empty save for the furnishings.

She tells him― 

And he never tells her no, never denies her, never questions her whims, and from what she can tell never wants for anything in return. She is not his mistress or his lover, and yet she can bend him to her will easier than any kept woman ever could. And while Kagura, as greedy as she is, is reluctant to question it, there is only so long this can go on before she asks.

“Why’re you doing all this?”

Sesshoumaru stops just as he’s placing her newest little gift on the dining table, a bronze mirror from the mainland, and he raises a brow as if he doesn’t know what she means. It surprises her how easily she’s learned to read him.

She scoffs and waves her hand at it. “You know what I mean.”

“You don’t know,” he says, voice almost laced with wonder, “and yet you’re more than willing to exploit it.”

“Why wouldn’t I?”

He stares at her, thinking, and then he moves to sit beside her, hands on his thighs as he watches her. There’s a snicker in her throat, but the strangely serious expression on his face stops her from voicing it.

“I failed.” His face is still neutral and the words are sure, meaning he’s thought about this enough times to say it so bluntly. “I had assumed that you were seeking some sort of redress on my part.”

“Failed what?” She doesn’t understand, she’s never known him to be a  _ failure… _

“That day in the field.” What day―?  _ Oh. _

She stares at him, a little dumbstruck, but then she has to stifle a laugh.

“You’ve been feeling guilty over  _ that?” _

She leans forward and dares to smooth her knuckles over his cheek. He keeps her gaze and doesn’t flinch away, so she closes the distance between them until they’re almost nose to nose. 

“Oh, dear Sesshoumaru, I’ve never faulted you for that.” The truth. He doesn’t move, but his eyes flicker across her face when she changes the position of her hand to gently cup his cheek. “But if you’re trying to make it up to me…”

Kagura leans back, pulling him with her until he has to brace his hands on either side of her head as he hovers above her. She grins.

“I’m a little greedy, so I think I can come up with a few ways.”

A smirk tugs at his lip as his eyes light up, and Kagura―

Never has to ask anything of him again.


	5. Pride

For a patchwork being, made up of the strung together parts of various youkai, spit out into a jar covered in slime with a scorch mark marring her spine, Kagura is…

_ Confident _ is the kindest word. She knows that humans have silly notions like modesty and being humble―it’s what their women strive for. Timid and bashful as they hide their smiles into a sleeve, speaking softly and averting their eyes whenever there’s a man near. The “lucky” ones, those rich enough to afford it, weigh themselves down with heavy robes and hair to the floor, paint on their faces to hide their blemishes.

Despite the circumstances of her birth, her very existence, Kagura declines the pretense of such self-deprecation.

She paints her lips and her eyelids, red as vibrant as the blood she spills, and strings jade beads through her earlobes, the perfect shade to contrast with her crimson eyes. Her robes―stolen, all of them―are made of silk, the stripes along her sleeves always a deep shade of maroon or violet, only the most expensive, perfectly breathable and loose enough to allow her to dance. She does not adorn her feet, sandals and socks are too restricting, she prefers feeling the earth beneath her toes.

Her dance brings death, but when she moves she cannot help the grin that overtakes her rouge stained lips, the inherent glee in movement and the fear in the eyes of her victims, but it doesn’t take long for her to realize it isn’t just terror that widens their eyes… there is awe there, too.

She swims in that feeling, the heat that travels from the tips of her fingers and straight to her head.

Corpses dance to her tune, oh so prettily, her wind courses through them and tugs them like puppets on strings, and there are times where even she is lost to the feeling, the elation, the pure joy of the dance. Murder is what she was made for, but that doesn’t mean she can’t enjoy herself as she brings down a bloodbath.

Once Naraku is dead there’s less and less incentive for her to go to battle, fewer enemies and lower stakes, so she falls back. It becomes a rare thing for her to open her fan for bloodshed.

In fact, it becomes so uncommon that she’s almost surprised when Kohaku asks for her help, saying something about his little village coming under threat from some youkai. She doesn’t understand why he bothers when Inuyasha’s lot are strong enough to handle any problem on their own, but once she agrees to go she sees why they’re calling in favors.

A horde of Hihi, monstrous apes, laughing so maliciously it sets a chill to her bones before they’ve even crested the hills that border the village. It would be an army, if the monkeys had the capacity to work together, instead they are nothing but a swarm of chaos, laying waste to whatever is in their path, whether that be a tree or a castle or each other. As many as their are, she understands why she’s been called, as stupid as they are, they’re strong and unpredictable, a tough opponent to beat.

Inuyasha is the first into the fray, his wife on his back, followed by the slayer and Kohaku. Sesshoumaru is somewhere in the village, uninterested in defending any human besides the girl tucked away in a hut somewhere.

Kagura watches them with nostalgia, remembering when she was on the receiving end of those attacks. They’ve grown, gotten stronger, but an army of monkeys is still a difficult order and it isn’t until she hears Kohaku’s scream that she decides to throw herself into the fray. The monkeys are too busy reigning destruction on anything and any _ one _ in their path to notice her in the sky.

As she raises her fan, she catches sight of a spectator from the corner of her eye, and with a grin she brings the wind down on their heads.

It’s chaos, blood spews into the sky as the apes are rent limb from limb, their laughter turning from that cringe inducing high pitched giggling to screeches of terror that are nearly as ear splitting. Kagura hardly hears it, suddenly taken by the dance of death. The wind flows, and soon enough there is little left of the apes, viscera and gore splattering the ground, turning the dirt to a deep dark red mud. The screeches have stopped, replaced only by the gentle  _ drip drip drip  _ of blood falling from splintered timbers.

It’s exhilarating.

Kagura closes her fan and turns around. Kohaku and his little friends are quiet, lips sealed tight and hands fisted at their sides. Nostalgic, but for them she thinks its a sickening sense of deja vu; she wants to laugh, infected by her own power, adrenaline thumping in her chest. A chuckle bubbles up her throat and the boy flinches. But their spectator, the man behind him…

Sesshoumaru’s eyes are alight with the same feeling coursing through her veins.

Kagura throws her head back and laughs, proud of the terror she’s wrought.


	6. Sloth

There are times Kagura wishes she was still evil.

“Good morning! How’ve you been doing?”

The miko’s voice is grating, and she misses the days when the girl feared her. But nonetheless, Kagura cracks an eye open and squints against the blinding sun to look up at Kagome, who’s smiling down at her as if she hasn’t just woken Kagura up from a nap.

“Was sleepin’,” she says, as if that wasn’t obvious, and sits up.

“Oh, sorry.” She doesn’t sound like she means it. “I was just wondering if you were still going to be in the village later this week, we’re having a―”

“I’m busy.” Kagura cuts her off, because she doesn’t feel like listening to Kagome’s story or the invitation that will follow it. She’s reluctant to leave the soft bed she’s made in the warm grass, but she jumps to her feet anyway.

“Well, if you―”

She’s in the sky before Kagome can finish her sentence.

* * *

Unfortunately her peace doesn’t last long.

It’s summer, which means that the sun is blazing hot by the time she thinks she’s far enough from the miko to feel at ease. She steals a pear from a nearby orchard and finds a cool stream to dangle her feet in, and just as she dips her toes into the water, she hears the sound of giggling children.

“Kagura! I wasn’t expecting to see you here!”

“Wasn’t expectin’ to be seen.”

The slayer does look surprised, but the children circling her legs perk up at the sight of her.

“ _ Kagu-a _ !” 

Their screams are ear splitting, and instead of the relaxation she’d been seeking the children are suddenly swarming her, babbling and asking questions. Unfortunately, the slayer puts too much trust in Kagura when it comes to her children, but she must have softened over the years because she doesn’t shoo them off right away.

To Kagura’s irritation, the slayer just laughs it off and goes to the water’s edge with her basket of laundry.

“You know, Kagura, we’re having a festival in the village in a few days, you should―”

As loathe as she is to leave the cool water the gag-inducing chatter is more oppressive than the summer’s heat. She leaves the slayer and her children without a second glance.

* * *

“ _ Kagura-sama!” _

She blinks up at the trembling leaves above her head, sunlight scattered in warm spots across her face, yet it cannot illuminate the deep furrow between her brows. With a sigh she sits up, blinking away what little sleep had come to her in her few short minutes of silence.

“What do you want, Rin?”

“Huh?” The girl stops a few feet away, a full basket resting on her hip. She’s been digging up roots, evidenced by the dirt smearing her hands. “Oh, nothing. I just saw you there and thought I should come say hello! I’m sorry, were you sleeping? It’s just that you hardly ever come into the village to visit, so I thought since you were here that we could catch up? I don’t know what you…”

She’d heard once that the girl had been mute before coming under Sesshoumaru’s care. With the way she blabbers now Kagura finds that hard to believe.

“...and you’d hardly believe how much he’s grown! But that reminds me! The summer festival is in two days, you don’t visit much but I think it would be fun. You should come―”

“No thanks, not my thing.”

Kagura doesn’t get up right away, because Rin of all of them should know that this is the end of the conversation, and maybe the girl considers it, but then she just puts on a pout.

“But it would be so much fun! Even Se―”

“Sorry kid!” She slaps her hands down on her thighs loud enough to startle her. “Not interested!”

The girl sticks out her bottom lip in a pout, but watches Kagura go without a word.

* * *

The sound of his feet stomping through the grass makes her groan. She knows he’s doing it on purpose, because Kohaku should have better tact than that.

“What do  _ you _ want?”

He chuckles, an odd sound coming from him, too mature for the boy she’s known. Kagura sits up and tilts her head to look at him. She has to squint against the setting sun behind him. He smiles, and she reluctantly nods at him to sit.

“Nothing, I just heard you were hanging around.” He drops to the grass to sit beside her. “Are you coming to the festival? Everyone’s pretty excited about it.”

Kagura holds herself back from hissing and lets out a snort instead. “You all keep askin’ me about that. How many times do I have to tell you to  _ fuck off  _ before you get the hint?”

“I thought I’d at least make an effort,” he laughs, “Rin was pretty disappointed that you said no.”

Kagura rolls her eyes. The kid could get over it.

“I’ve got no business hangin’ out in some dumpy human village.”

Kohaku goes quiet. The silence is comforting disturbed only by the sound of the wind rustling through the trees. Kagura let’s it fill her, and she almost misses it when the boy says:

“Not even with friends?”

Kagura sniffs and lets the silence speak for her.

* * *

Her arrival is welcomed with nothing short of an assault.

The miko and the slayer, the girl and Kohaku all crowding around her as if it’s been years since they’ve seen each other. All smiles and giggles, as if she hasn’t threatened their lives on more than one occasion. All of that forgotten, they pull her into the crowd like reeling in a fish.

Kagome tugs on her hand, introduces her to someone who’s name she’ll never remember, but who is fascinated by the color of her eyes. Sango pulls on her sleeve, and finds her a comfortable place to sit, not too far from the fire but close enough to the edge of its light that she can slip away. Rin offers her the sweet candies she and the other young girls have made; they make her teeth ache, but Kagura reaches for another. And Kohaku slips her a cup of sake that she greedily gulps down as he laughs.

It burns her throat, but she’s never felt so warm.


	7. Wrath

There were few things Kagura knew better than death.

Murder was one of the few skills she excelled in, something she could bring on with nothing more than the flick of her wrist. She felt no guilt for the lives she’d ended, the blood she’d spilled. Inconsequential, the lot of them, and she’d never had reason to question the value of a life other than her own. 

Despite the terror she wrought, she was as apathetic in regards to her own violence as she was when it came to anything else she did. Naraku would have been the exception, had she survived long enough to kill him herself.

As loathe as she was to have missed the spectacle of his death―oh how she would have relished the look on his face―the simple knowledge of it was enough to appease her. She’d certainly grilled Kohaku for all the grisly details, and she found that she could live her newfound life without regret. 

An uneventful life, but a free one. She could live quite comfortably with that.

Death is her trade, and yet as she throws herself to the sky and flies to her heart's content, she finds herself avoiding the sort of conflict that had painted so much of her former life. It’s as if she’s atrophied under such peace, and she doesn’t quite realize it until― 

She thinks she’s found herself a cozy little spot, a patch of moss beside a shallow and slow flowing river. It’s quiet, and Kagura sets down softly, intending to take a nap or a bath or whatever the hell she damn well pleases just because she can. Despite the changing of the leaves above her head, the weather is still warm, and when she dips her fingers into the clear water it doesn’t yet have the icy bite of snow run off. 

Kagura lets down her hair and unties her belt―her robes need washing, too, so she doesn’t think twice about removing them before she wades into the river and ducks down til the water reaches her belly. She moves to slip the robes from her shoulders, but the slightest pitter patter of feet slapping against rock reaches her ears.

She freezes, ears twitching and trying to pinpoint the sound...

Across the water, partially obscured by a fallen tree, a small girl, no older than ten with a basket slung over her shoulders as she scampers across the stones and boulders that make up the opposite bank. She hardly weighs enough to shift the rocks beneath her bare feet, the only thing to give away her presence is the slap of skin against stone and her panting breaths as she skips along, searching for something. The girl doesn’t notice her, too focused on her task. 

Stupid little thing, Kagura thinks, no wonder human children die so easily. 

With her bath ruined, Kagura stands, leaves her sodden robes dripping off her frame and picks her way through the smooth river rocks back to the shore, irritated that she’ll have to find another spot up river to avoid the child screeching at the sight of her. Kagura rolls her eyes and doesn’t bother fixing up her clothes as she reaches for the feather she’d left on the rocks, she only spares the girl a final exasperated glance― 

And sees that she’s frozen in place.

She can’t see the girl’s face, but knows that it isn’t terror that grips her. The girl shifts her weight from foot to foot, dips her chin to the ground and then looks back up again, fists the hem of her dress in her hands. 

Kagura pauses, curious what’s got the child so nervous, until she sees a shadow beyond the fallen tree, and a man steps into her line of sight.

Even shaded by dead branches, he’s unassuming, a bland face with a top knot pulled tight at the back of his skull; but his clothing is fine, far nicer than the girl’s simple hemp robes. He doesn’t see her watching, and smiles down at the child, and Kagura might think the scene quaint, if not for the way the girl leans away when he steps forward.

He speaks, and despite the strength of her ears she can’t make out more than a mumble above the bubbling water, but he takes another step and the girl shrinks under his shadow. 

Something sinks in Kagura’s stomach.

He takes another step and kneels down―has to, with how tiny the girl is in comparison―close, and keeps talking, that disarming smile spread across his lips. The girl isn’t looking at him, and Kagura might think she’s in for a scolding if not for the man’s smile, that oddly soft look in his eye, and the way he reaches out a hand to place it on the girl’s shoulder.

She flinches, but still doesn’t meet his eye, and something like annoyance flashes across his face, the smile falls away, but the girl doesn’t notice because she’s staring at the rocks between her toes, and she’s still frozen when he removes his hand from her should and drops it lower, to grip her thigh just below the hem of her robe, his hand big enough to touch fingertip to fingertip around her leg as he moves higher― 

Kagura moves without thought, urged on by the sudden fire thundering through her veins, heart beating louder than it ever has as her vision goes red and she can’t see anything except for the man’s hand  _ where it should not be. _

She lands, more like a collision, and the stones beneath her feet clatter with the force of her weight, but the man―stupid and human as he is―is a little too slow to register her presence.

“Move your hand any higher and it won’t be the only thing I remove.”

The scream that leaves his throat isn’t enough to soothe the fury burning down her spine, if only because the girl looks just as frozen and nervous at the sight of a youkai as she had at the man’s arrival.

“What the fuck were you doing?” Her words are barely more than a hiss, a snarl curling her lip and her rage fueling the winds that lash at the air around her, whipping her hair and the shallow puddles at her feet. He stutters―eyes wide enough to make her laugh if she was in a better mood―his mouth flaps, but nothing comes out besides mumbles and gasps and Kagura does not have the patience. 

“ _ I asked you a question.” _

She swings her arm, and a wind blade explodes against the stones near his feet and somehow he finds his voice.

“I―she―she is my betrothed and―”

Another swing of her arm, another wind blade slicing through rock, and he snaps his mouth shut.

“Girl.” She tries to steady her voice. Kagura has never had to hone her capabilities for kindness. “Is what he says true?”

The girl hesitates, then nods. Kagura turns her gaze back to the man, tilts her head and pulls her lips away from her teeth in something resembling a grin.

“Quite a nice day, for a romantic rendezvous with your _ fiance _ , isn’t it?”

He blinks, and then as if she’s just told him some great joke, that simpering smile comes back to his face, and he nods excitedly, all she can see is his gapped teeth―that fury blazes up between her shoulder blades―

And then he is screaming, that vile grin made permanent as blood spills from his mouth, the gashes across his cheeks sloppy and uneven―embarrassing, that she has to claim such quick work―but his screams and his thrashing against the ground are like music to her ears, and she revels in his agony.

Beside him, the girl stares, wide eyed and now truly terrified…

“Girl―” she jumps, “do you have family?”

She nods slowly, trembling, as the man continues to moan against the rocks.

“Go on then, go and tell them your dear  _ betrothed _ had an accident.”

She hesitates, glances at the man at her feet, the blood pooling in the crevices between stones.

And then she runs.

Kagura watches until her shadow disappears into the trees before she turns her attention back to him, and takes a step forward.

Death. Violence. Bloodshed. All things she has mastered, refined, and yet when she looks down at the pathetic excuse for a human whimpering at her feet, she suddenly forgets all that she has learned.

“I’m sure that wasn’t the first time…” the sickening  _ crack!  _ of her heel smashing through the bone of his shin is delicious, “...but I’m happy to let you know that it will be your last.” 

He screams, but it does little to assuage her. 

First it is his leg, so that when he tries to run all he can manage is a pitiful crawl.

Then it is his hand, the one he’d used―a harder task, with the way he cradles his split face, but she manages―she grabs him by the wrist, and though her strength is meager compared to other youkai, she can still snap the bones of his fingers with ease.

Next she simply slices off the entire hand, tosses it into the water, food for fishes.

Death by a thousand cuts. 

The river runs red. 

Screams turn to moans, to silence.

In the moonlight, his corpse―mangled and mutilated―dances to Kagura’s song. 


End file.
